Originally announced on August 7, 2006 at the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) the Mac Pro had taken the reigns from its predecessor, the Power Mac G5, becoming Apple’s high end workhorse machine known for its outward appearance and capacity for expansion. On January 8, 2008 Apple introduced the 3.2 GHz, dual quad-core Intel Xeon (Harpertown 45nm), becoming Apple’s most powerful machine to date, yet retained its familiar facade. Over a year has passed since the last Mac Pro update, leading many to believe that an overhaul will be unveiled in the near future.

Set as the Intel-based replacement for Apple’s Power Mac G5, the much anticipated Mac Pro gave users a viable high end option. Rumors and speculation of the Mac Pro’s appearance became wildly popular as even the machine’s namesake became clear due to the company’s dropping of the term “power” for “pro” on their higher end notebook. The Mac Pro has been generally well received since its launch, and users have primarily responded well to the updates that it has seen over the past couple of years. Its performance, expandability and sleek design makes the Mac Pro an industry standard high performance piece of machinery that is often the mark by which others are compared. The Mac Pro’s price points can seem rather steep, as an uber supped model can easily fetch in excess of $20,000, yet the performance speaks for itself.

As of late there has been minimal speculation or rumors regarding a Mac Pro update. Over the past couple of weeks, we have caught word of a few minor aesthetic enhancements including the loss of its cheese grater-esque front and back exterior for a more refined laser cut micro-perforated face. Additionally, conceptual slot loading front end drives will allow the Mac Pro shed its outdated mug and eliminate the risk of breakage. It’s important to remember that Apple most likely won’t completely redesign its high-end professional line of machines. Instead, subtle and elegant refinements throughout the machine making for a much sleeker and sexier look is what we expect to see. Apple will most likely make use of its new aluminum manufacturing methods as well.

CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE

As far as ports are concerned, we believe that a new Mac Pro could sport additional USB 2.0 inputs, a single FireWire 400 and multiple FireWire 800 ports, dual eSATA and HDMI inputs and also be able to support the new 24″ LED Cinema Displays with dual Mini DisplayPorts and MagSafe power. Two Dual-link DVI ports would remain on the machine for users of the older Apple Cinema Displays.

Recent evidence has also pointed to the adoption of the new eight-core Intel Nehalem class processors that are set to be announced at next month’s International Solid-State Circuits Conference. The ISSCC notes that Intel will show off an “eight-core, 16-thread Xeon processor manufactured with a 45-nanometer process,” that would certainly lend itself nicely to a Mac Pro update. The Mac Pro has not been given any sort of love in over a year, making way for an update that may include new processors which would boost the machine’s overall speed and performance.

Slap on a shiny black trimmed Apple logo to match the new notebook line and you’ve got yourself one hot machine. Without even so much of a whisper about the Mac Pro at this past Macworld ‘09, we expect to see it receive some attention over the next couple of months.

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It is a common perception that Macworld can be rather gender-biased event as upon first glance you may notice more individuals possessing a Y chromosome. Ahh, but this myth has now been debunked as we present you with the Macworld 2009 booth bunnies. What’s a booth bunny? In keeping with many basic principles of sales 101, the old adage of sex sells, remains as present as ever. Lets have a look at this year’s contenders.

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Chris Nikkel and FreedomVoice Systems have spent nearly half a million dollars on marketing and developing Newber. The application is aimed at allowing users to seamlessly redirect incoming calls to any surrounding phones. Sound complicated? Yes. Useful? Could be. As their website states, “Simply key in a landline phone number at your location, then toggle between taking your business calls on that phone or your iPhone. Newber will automatically detect this phone each time you return to that location, allowing you to change phones with one touch. You can even swap phones in the middle of a live call without interrupting the conversation.” In a nutshell, if you’re walking into your home or office on an important call, and your iPhone’s battery is running low or your reception is poor, with Newber, simply transfer the call to your landline and pick up where you left off.

Chris Nikkel has not been able to establish a constructive line of communication with Apple. Since investing nearly five-hundred thousand dollars in the development and marketing of Newber, they still have not been accepted into the App Store. We reached out to Chris Nikkel and FVS Corporate with some questions about their approach and experience with the app store. Here is the Q&A exchange verbatim (Our questions are in bold).

Who’s concept/idea is Newber?

Chris Nikkel, Director of R & D for FreedomVoice Systems, came up with the concept of Newber after listening to the speech by Steve Jobs where he announced the App Store. He was inspired by Apple’s innovation and decided to try to apply it to the types of problems that FreedomVoice Systems is known for solving.

What makes you think that Apple, and not AT&T is stopping this from begin accepted? They could potentially be missing out on revenue by customers choosing lower priced packages with the intention of using Newber.

There are already other apps in the App Store that allow you to try to avoid AT&T’s network by utilizing VoIP. These apps directly emphasize their benefits over AT&T like cheaper rates for foreign calling. If they got through the App Store process, then I can’t imagine why Newber would be any different to AT&T.

What technical reason do you think is holding up Newber from being accepted? And if you were told to change some things, would you?

It’s hard to speculate on the reasons why Apple might be holding this up, since their past history has been so inconsistent. We really want to work with Apple and AT&T to enable their customers to be more productive. If they would communicate the issue they are having, we would be more than willing to do everything we could to help resolve it. The fact we haven’t got any information on how we can help move our product through the approval process is really discouraging.

If this does not ever get accepted into the App Store, will you be rolling it out on other platforms like Android?

Yes. Whether or not the application is received by the App Store, we intend to take the application to other platforms. There’s simply too much positive feedback about the application for us not to find some way to get it to the public. Work has already begun on Blackberry, and other platforms are sure to follow.

Right now is Apple’s opportunity to be the first to market with Newber and empower their smartphone to be an innovative business device.

Is FreedomVoice Systems the company funding the development?

Newber is a product fully funded and developed by FreedomVoice Systems. We have been in business for over 10 years providing telephony solutions to small businesses.

Over $500k is an astronomical amount of money, was there ever a moment when you thought maybe you were investing too much into an uncertain future? Did you ever have any doubts about the application process before, or during initial development?

The type of product we are trying create requires not only writing a piece of software for the iPhone, but also setting up custom in-house servers to handle the call traffic. It’s not the sort of thing you could do as a weekend project, and certainly not without the funding we’ve invested.

We definitely discussed several contingencies for getting rejected from the App Store, but not being stalled indefinitely. We had heard some horror stories about applications being denied for anomalous reasons, but we were encouraged by the overwhelmingly positive feedback we’ve received from our Beta testers.

All along we’ve felt that Newber was aligned with Apple’s direction of making the iPhone a more business-ready smartphone. The apps that we’ve seen enter the App Store in the Business category all seemed to be more like gadgets, calculators, and voice recorders. We feel that a truly helpful business application like Newber should not meet strong resistance from Apple.

What marketing have you done thus far?

• Booth at CTIA ShowStoppers on September 9th, 2008.
• Booth at CES Unveiled on November 11th, 2008.
• Plan to have a booth at MacWorld ShowStoppers on January 4th, 2009.
• Plan to have a booth at CES on January 8-11, 2009.
• Launch of a product site, www.mynewber.com.
• Supporting a limited beta that includes a combination of bloggers, media, and targeted users.
• Outreach to build relationships with top media sources: (Gizmodo, TMCnet)

As far as the technology is concerned, how are the calls transferred seamlessly?

All of your business calls go through the new phone number we give you, your Newber. When you decide to move a call to another phone, we initiate a call to the new phone. As soon as you answer, the call has transferred. The process is transparent to the person with whom you are speaking and requires no interruption in your conversation.

In a nutshell, what would you like to see Apple change in the App Store, or the approval process as it currently is?

If they want to make the process work, they need to be more consistent in enforcing the rules that they have established to help companies like ours plan a strategy to bring innovative products to market. In addition, they need to communicate with the developers to help them get their applications into the store. Rather than “rejecting” an application, it would be better if Apple just told the developer what to change to get it into the store.

In summing up, if there’s anything you’d like to let fellow developers know about your experience/process in order to help them in the future, please feel free (obviously respecting your confidentiality).

I don’t think the time has come where developers should completely give up on the device. Recently, Apple has opened up the door a bit more and let in some of the apps that were previously rejected. I think that developers should continue to encourage Apple to make improvements to the App Store and its approval process. It’s the software that forms a customer’s experience and determines whether a platform will succeed. It would be wise for Apple to follow the lead of its developers and open up better lines of communication.

Newber has spent nearly two and a half months in App Store limbo. With no word from Apple, Chris Nikkel doesn’t know if they will ever be approved. Developers have recently begun speaking up about their concerns with Apple’s app store. As we delve deeper into Apple’s thought process with the App Store, communication will play a big part in the entire platform’s success.

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Below is a list of some the best unaired Apple commercials available today.

Vista Nightmares

In this commercial, PC guy bangs himself against the wall as he tries to find solutions to his upgrade woes.

114,000 Viruses

In this one, PC guy tries to hide himself from viruses and spyware, while comparing the internet to a dirty public bathroom.

Unaired iChat Commercial

Apple’s marketing angle was to try and get you to, “Express yourself through iChat.”

Unaired Mail Commercial

Boy that interface is smooth and snappy. Look how fast he’s able to compose and read email messages!

Unaired Sherlock3 Commercial

Sherlock was Apple’s “finder” before we had the finder and spotlight. This commercial was targeted at helping people find themselves with “Sherlock 3″ – (Read about Sherlock at Wikipedia).

Developers Quit

PC guy explains that he has a personal message from Steve Jobs telling all developers to “quit” and rest their big brains.

And the grandaddy of them all…

This was never intended to be a commercial that would air on tv. It was unveiled to the crowd at WWDC 2007.

There’s this one as well, but it was too awful to include.

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Steve Jobs, the name within itself is synonmous with Apple, the iPod, iPhone, cutting-edge innovation and devotion to perfection. The Apple CEO has become so mystifying, yet so culturally shape-shifting, that a sneak peak into his mind would be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

With Inside Steve’s Brain, Wired News Editor Leander Kahney provides an accurate, honest and intriguing look into the mind behind one of the greatest innovators of all time. What separates this book from the vast mountains of Apple literature, is Kahney’s elegant approach to the narrative. The book is up-to-date, relevant and most importantly, factual. As a long time Jobs follower myself, I found Kahney’s deep knowledge of the subject immensely intriguing and engaging.

Many books have attempted to chronicle Jobs and Apple in the past, but none have come across quite as effortlessly interesting as Inside Steve’s Brain. Kahney is able to seamlessly weave together quotes, elements of Apple’s history, interviews and a deep understanding of the culture within a joyful, enjoyable read.

With respect to modern culture and what is happening now, Kahney refrains from delving too deeply into the past. After a brief jaunt through Jobs’ experience at NeXT, coming back to save Apple, and his relentless pursuit to perfect OS X, the book delves into the backend of Jobs’ brain, with rather intricate detail. Kahney’s passion clearly shines through in the book, yet his ability to stay focused is a major perk for the reader. When writing about a subject so culturally significant as the era of Apple and Steve Jobs, many writers have the tendency to get swept away in “passionate” rants and blurry details. Kahney, on the other hand, keeps the experience crisp, focused and to the point.

“At every turn of his career, Steve Jobs has inspired employees, lured software developers, and snagged customers by invoking a higher calling. For Jobs, programmers don’t work to make easy-to-use software; they’re striving to change the world. Apple’s customers don’t buy Macs to work on spreadsheets; they’re making a moral choice against the evil monopoly of Microsoft.”

The above quote is taken from chapter five, which is titled “Passion: Putting a Ding in the Universe.” It’s here that Kahney truly delves into the inner-workings of Steve Jobs. Showcasing how Apple has time and again fought against the grain, yet somehow manages to emerge on top, Kahney breaks down not only Jobs, but many of the top tier employees at Apple, providing a window into the enormously impressive braintrust that is Apple Inc.

Touching upon everything from life in Silicon Valley, Apple’s terrifying backdating scandal and Jobs’ alter-ego, the meat of the book contains an immense spread of information, all pieced together to create an informative, intelligent read.

Whether Jobs is saving a life’s worth of documents for his own memoirs or not, is still unconfirmed. But his lack of participation in the book isn’t shocking in the slightest. Even without a direct interview from Jobs, Kahney delivers home the essence of Apple, while weaving together an immense understanding of the culture. If you haven’t by now, pick up the book and give it a twirl.

[Inside Steve's Brain]

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Roughly 3 months ago in July, I filled out my online resume and submitted it to Apple.com. Keep in mind at the time that I was fully employed and simply curious about what the entire process would be like. I had always heard about what working for Apple was like, but I wanted to find out for myself.

A few days later, I got an email from one of the local Apple Store’s hiring manager. They said that Apple wanted to bring me in for an interview with two of the store’s superiors (manager and hiring manager). After a few emails back and forth, I went in and met with them. The encounter started off with me waiting in the retail store for about 30 minutes past our meeting time for both of them to waltz in like they were Apple execs or something. But, I kept an open mind, stayed patient and pretended like I was that Apple go-getter, the kind that didn’t know anything more than I was supposed to know.

After they finally arrived, we all sat down and they began asking me about my personal life, what I like to do, and my hobbies. I answered with the typical response that anybody in their 20’s living in Portland, would reply with, “I like hiking, taking the dogs places, going to the coast, Mt.Hood, blah, blah, blah…” After some aimless gibberish they started asking me about my past experience and what I am currently involved with. They even directly asked about MacBlogz.com saying “their might be a conflict of interest here.” I’ll admit, I got nervous here, but I looked at them and said “Oh, MacBlogz is nothing… Just a site my buddy and I built (which is the truth).” Of course because they had my resume, my current and past experiences are pretty much an open book at this point, and I’m not into lying.

Both managers continued to explain that Apple is “Very Strict” with its employees and what they do with their free time. This was such a major turn-off to me. I mean, I knew going into this entire thing that I wouldn’t take the job, but this just confirmed my initial hesitance about working for Apple, especially at this tadpole level. They went on and on about how the job was great and people at the store really loved “working as a team.” Next up were about 20 technical questions that they wanted to ask me. One of the managers kept telling me that it doesn’t matter how many I get right, and that most of his staff couldn’t even answer 10 of them… Great.

Here are a few of the questions they asked me:

• What is special about the Mac Pro’s current Ram setup?
• What is Automator and what does it do?
• If a user account keeps crashing on login what do you do?
• What are 3 keyboard combinations you can boot your computer with?
• Are you familiar with OS 9?
• If a customer asks you to sync music from their iPod to computer, what do you say?
• How do you answer a customer who wants to share music with his friend via iTunes?

Once the questions were over, I asked the guy how I did and he responded “just as well, or better than the better half of my team,” whatever that meant. From my count, I got about 17 out of the 20 questions correct. Then the best question of the entire interview came up, “So, do you have any questions for us?” Perfect I thought, I’ve been waiting for this one… “How do you like your jobs?” I replied. “How do you like working for Apple? and how long have you been here?” They looked at eachother and the older one said, “hmmm, that’s a good one” as he went off into a mini-rant, scratching his head, looking at the ceiling… “I’ve been here for 4 years, some days I want to pull my hair out and other days I am so happy I helped a customer. It’s a huge commitment and you can’t call your own hours,” he continued. “How do you like socializing with people and looking at hardware?” he asked me. I had previously heard that most of Apple’s higher level Retail positions like Genius were very bi-polar positions, where you’d spend half the day fixing a computer, and the other half talking to people with iTunes problems. As he continued to drone on and on about his current job, it seemed as though he was trying to justify his place at Apple to himself more than his co-worker or me.

After he was done dribbling, we got up, shook hands and I walked off. A few days later I received these documents in an email titled “Genius Position Hiring Offer” from Apple Inc. I thought it’d be best to share them.

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Of course part of the rules were that the contest winner gets to choose the color of his new iPod. We already contacted Max and he told us he wants a blue one. Well Max, congratulations and consider it done.

We would like to extend our gratitude to everyone who has participated in the MacBlogz Caption Contest. While we certainly have enjoyed all of your entries, the votes have been tallied and we have a clear winner. The official winning caption can be found in the image below.

Winning Caption: “Steve summons his level 4 iPod Nano to wreak havoc on the helpless streets of San Francisco.”

Once again we would like to thank everyone who participated, stay tuned for more contests in the future!

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It’s extremely easy to enter the contest. Simply click here, check out the funny image, write a caption in the comments and the vote alongside everyone else.

The contest ends on Tuesday, September 16th at 5:00pm Eastern Time, 2:00pm Pacific Time. Enter Here.

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Want to win a brand new 16GB iPod nano? Sure you do.

Well folks, it’s pretty easy to enter our Caption Contest below. Simply think of a funny quote, saying, comment, question, prayer, rant, etc., that is relevant to the image below and then collectively vote on the winner!
Please make sure and read through the rules carefully. The voting system is really simple. To the right of each comment, there’s a “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” button.
(Just like Digg)

Contest Rules:

• Enter a comment (caption) below
• Limit (THREE) comments per person
• Vote your favorite comments up, and the other ones down
• You can vote once per comment, per IP address
• You can’t vote for your own comments
• All comments require a valid email address, this is how we’ll contact the winner
• There needs to be a minimum of 50 comments (entries) for the contest to take effect
• Contest end date is Tuesday, September 16th at 5:00pm Eastern Time, 2:00pm Pacific Time
• Don’t worry about how many votes are on your comment, we use math to determine a few factors
• The comment with the highest ranking will win a 16GB iPod nano, in the color of your choice!

To enter the contest, simply think of a funny quote, saying, comment, question, prayer, rant, etc., that is relevant to the image below, and then collectively vote on the winner! CLICK HERE for a full size version.



Click Here for a full size version of the image above.

The Contest begins NOW !!! Good luck everyone !

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Big Canvas, a creative developer of applications for the iPhone and Web, introduce their first application, Big Canvas™ PhotoShare. With PhotoShare, iPhone users can seamlessly share, store and manage images taken on their device. Photos can be uploaded live, moments after being taken, comments can be added to the images, and they can be easily categorized to share with designated groups. With a few simple gestures/touches, directly in the device interface, users can easily take images captured from daily life and distribute these photos to friends, family, affinity groups, or even just mark them for public or private viewing. The core application and service are free.

We have had the opportunity to get an exclusive from Founder and President of Big Canvas, Satoshi Nakajima, who tells MacBlogz that:

“The Apple App Store provides a unique opportunity for developers to bypass the carrier and deliver unique applications to end users. Our team at Big Canvas really rose to that occasion to create a tool that iPhone users can leverage to instantly share life experiences with others in photo form. We’ve added a variety of interesting features that allow people to really start a community around the images of their life. We’re really excited to see consumer reaction and can’t wait to continue developing new, innovative applications for the iPhone.”

“I’ve been developing mobile applications for more than 8 years now. When I began looking into the SDK, I found an elegant kit that really allowed developers to get creative and build something special. With PhotoShare I think we’ve captured that creativity that Apple was looking for and really delivered a high-end application that users can experience for free.”

PhotoShare is an innovative new application built from scratch just for the iPhone, using the iPhone SDK. It combines a native iPhone application and a Web 2.0 service, which work in harmony to ensure customers get the best possible user experience on the iPhone. As part of the development initiative, the Big Canvas team has optimized the overall architecture – not only the application, but also the underlying network protocols – to take advantage of the iPhone’s unique capabilities, features and requirements.

Some of the key features include:

• Family and FriendShare –share photos with family and friends directly from the iPhone (just as secure as sending private e-mail messages, but a lot more convenient).

• PhotoFavorite – when you save a public photo to your personal favorites, you essentially cast your vote for the best public pictures on PhotoShare; help distinguish the best-of-the-best from thousands of pictures posted by users, win great prizes.

• FollowPhoto – subscribe to other user photo-casts and enjoy the ongoing photo postings instantly.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH OUR EXCLUSIVE LIVE VIDEO OF PHOTOSHARE IN ACTION.

PhotoShare: Free
MacBlogz Rating: 4/5
Learning Curve: Easy/Medium

More info here.

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